Sept. 5 - In the words of Willy Nelson.......On the road again!

Crescent City to Elk Prairie Campground in Prairie Creek State Park

Sunday - September 5
What a beautiful morning. Made it easy to get up early (unlike the very rainy 1st day mornings the last 2 years) so we were on the road by 8:30 after a McDonald's breakfast, hopefully our last fast food restaurant on this trip.



The road was flat, the winds calm and there was very little traffic as we left town.

The Crescent City hills will start soon enough so we lingered abit taking in the ocean and listening to the fog horn.

We are starting to climb with great visibility at the viewpoints AKA rest stops.

The good thing about going slowly uphill (3.5.mph) is it was easy to gawk at the big redwoods.

This is summit number 1 of 3.

Doug is wondering if the truck speed limit applies to his Long Haul Trucker (Summit #3)

Just really enjoying the sunshine and the views and knowing that we had done OK on the first big hill of the ride. We had NOT been able to do as many training rides as last year and the first day traveling fully loaded is always different besides.

It was a fine ride back down to sea level.



This bike "cheesecake" picture taken just so we could send it to the folks at CoMotion and let them know their bike was having a good time.

We arrived at the Trees of Mystery just before lunch time. In fact we had to wait a few minutes for the lunch menu to be available at the restaurant across the street. We met a young man there that lives very close to Highway 20 in New York. He has ridden his Long Haul Trucker from there and is planning to ride down the foothills of the Sierras then on to San Diego. And his bike shoes were flip flops!

We visited Paul Bunyan while letting our lunch settle. He was quite entertaining. The "voice" could obviously see everything going on at the base of the statue. It was great fun watching the kids when he talked directly to them then commented on their reactions.

Our schedule had us staying in Klamath but it was still early in the day so we picked up some food for dinner there and continued south. This is at the Hotel Ravenwood in Klamath.

The Klamath River

Just another 900 foot climb between us and the Elk Prairie Campground.



Over the top and down the other side. Doug saw a bear cross the road near here. We also met 4 young men who asked if we had seen their friend. We had seen him........blasting downhill as we were coming up......well beyond where he was supposed to meet them! We wished them well and continued moseying towards the campground........



.........and gawking at the big trees.

Another advantage to bike touring is campsite availability on Labor Day weekend. The campground was totally full when we arrived at about 4:00 except for the hiker/biker sites. We were the first ones there so we nabbed the sunny spot.



After setting up our tent we headed back to the trailhead for the Big Tree that we had passed about a half mile before the campground entrance.



This tree is 287 feet tall, 23.7 feet in diameter with a 68 foot circumference and is approximately 1,500 years old.

This one was just a baby in comparison!

What a day! Lots of beauty along with our roadside sightings which included a dog bowl, towel, RV window screen, 3 hubcaps, and a bunch of telephone wire. Doug saw a bear cross the road. Our sound of the day was the pigeons flapping around our tent all evening.
Miles = 38.4
Total miles = 44.2